The Old World and Its Ways. Bryan William Jennings

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СКАЧАТЬ As young Yamashita and I rode between the lines they waved their flags and shouted "Banzai." And so it was at other schools. Older people may be diplomatic and feign good will, but children speak from their hearts. There is no mistaking their meaning, and in my memory the echo of the voices of the children, mingling with the assurances of the men and women, convinces me that Japan entertains nothing but good will toward our nation. Steam has narrowed the Pacific and made us neighbors; let Justice keep us friends.

      CHAPTER IV.

      JAPAN – HER HISTORY AND PROGRESS

      As for the islands themselves, they are largely of volcanic origin, and a number of smoking peaks still give evidence of the mighty convulsions which piled up these masses of masonry. Asosan mountain, on the island of Kyushu, has the largest crater in the world.

      Japan is the home of the earthquake. The Japanese Year Book of 1905 is authority for the statement that Japan was visited by 17,750 earthquakes during the thirteen years ending 1887 – an average of more than thirteen hundred a year, or three and a half each day. It is needless to say that a large majority of these were so trivial as to be unnoticed, except by those in charge of the delicate instrument which registers them.

      If the average is as great at this time, there have been more than seventy-five since we landed, but we have not been aware of them. The severe shocks have come at periods averaging two and a half years, and the really disastrous ones have been something like fifty years apart. The country about Tokyo is most subject to earthquakes, the last severe one being in 1894. According to an ancient legend, Japan rests upon the back of a large fish and the earthquakes are caused by the moving of the fish. There is a Seismological society in Japan which has published a sixteen-volume work giving all that is scientifically known of the cause and recurrence of these disturbances.

      Of the origin of the Japanese themselves nothing certain is known. The best authorities say that they came from the continent in an early Mongol invasion, while others believe that they came from the islands which stretch to the south. One writer announces the theory that they are the lost Israelites. It is quite certain that when the first Japanese landed on the islands they found an earlier race in possession. Some seventeen thousand of these, called Ainus, now occupy the northern extremity of the empire – an indication that the migration was from the southwest. The Ainus have remained distinct; where they have intermarried with the Japanese, the half breeds have died out in the second or third generation. They are a hairy race and in physical characteristics quite different from the Japanese. Their religion is a sort of nature worship, and it is their custom to say a simple grace before eating.

      The remoteness of the settlement of Japan is shown by the fact that the reigning family, which claims descent from the gods, has held undisputed sway for twenty-five hundred years, although the record of the first thousand years is so dependent upon verbal tradition that the official history cannot be verified. As concubinage has been practiced from time immemorial, the heir, the oldest son, has not always been born of the empress.

      Soon after the beginning of the Christian era the influence of China and Korea began to be felt in Japan, the written characters of the language being quite like the Chinese. Koreans and Japanese do not agree as to the influence which the former have had upon the latter. A very intelligent Korean informs me that his is the mother country and that Japan was settled from Korea, but the Japanese do not take kindly to this theory.

      The feudal system, of which I shall speak more at length in another article, was early established in Japan, and society was divided into well defined classes. First came the members of the royal family and those admitted to the circle by favor; next, the Shogun (of whom more will be heard under the subject of government) and his relatives.

      Next in rank were the daimios, or lords, of varying degrees of importance. Each daimio had a large number of retainers, who were called samurai, and below these were a still larger number of peasants who tilled the soil and did the manual labor. Some of the early pictures show the gorgeous dress of the daimios and portray the elaborate ceremony employed on state occasions.

      The samurai were the warriors and had no other occupation than to defend their lords in the struggles between the clans. They corresponded to the knights in Europe during the days of chivalry, except that there were no romantic adventures over women – woman holding until recently a very subordinate place as compared with "her lord and master."

      The samurai were given an annual allowance for their subsistence, and felt that toil was far beneath their dignity. They wore lacquered armor and costly helmets and carried two swords – a long one for the enemy and a short one for themselves.

      It was with this short sword that the famous hara-kiri was committed. This ancient form of suicide by disembowelment was considered an highly honorable death and has been practiced until within a generation. General Saigo, one of the great men of Japan and one of its popular heroes, was the last man of prominence to terminate his life in this way. He was one of the leaders in the movement to restore to the emperor the authority which the shoguns had usurped and was for a while close to the throne. In 1874, however, he organized an army for the invasion of Korea, and coming into conflict with the forces of the empire, which were called out to prevent the invasion, he was defeated. In his humiliation he committed hara-kiri. A few years ago the title of Marquis was conferred upon him by a posthumous decree and is now enjoyed by his eldest son. One of his sons is the present mayor of Kyoto and another a colonel in the Imperial Guard. A bronze monument of heroic size, the gift of admiring friends, has recently been placed in the principal park in Tokyo.

      Only a few years ago a young Japanese committed suicide in this way in order to emphasize his protest against the encroachments of the Russians, but a strong sentiment is developing against hara-kiri, and it will soon take its place among other obsolete customs.

      The samurai represented the intellectual as well as the military strength of the nation. The daimios have furnished few of the men of prominence in modern Japan, nearly all of the leaders in government, education, literature and the professions having come from the samurai class. Now, however, that all social distinctions have been removed and the schools opened to the children of all, the old lines between the classes cannot so easily be traced.

      The merchant class has always been looked down upon in Japan. In the social scale the members of this class were not only lower than the samurai, but lower than the tillers of the soil. It was probably because of the contempt in which they were held that so low a standard of integrity existed among them – at least this is the explanation usually given. Even now Japanese, as well as foreigners, complain that the merchants impose upon their customers, but here also a change is taking place and a new order of things being inaugurated. There are in every city merchants of honor and responsibility who are redeeming trade from the stigma which it so long bore. Still, unless the stranger knows with whom he is dealing, it is well to have a Japanese advisor, for we found by experience that the price named to foreigners was sometimes considerably above the regular price.

      For centuries Japan lived an isolated life and developed herself according to her own ideas. Of her native religion, Shintoism, of the introduction of Buddhism and of the first Christian missionaries, I shall speak in a later article. She repelled an attack of the Mongols which might have been disastrous to her but for the fact that a timely storm destroyed the invading fleet, much as the Spanish Armada was destroyed. She has from time to time attempted the invasion of Korea, the last attempt being made about three hundred years ago. A little later the Shogun, Iemitsu, alarmed by the spread of the Christian religion, introduced by Catholic missionaries from Spain and Portugal, shut the country up, and for two and a half centuries no foreigner was admitted and no citizen of Japan was permitted to go abroad.

      To more surely keep his people at home the Shogun prohibited the building of any but small sailing vessels. It is almost incredible that so large a group of people could have enjoyed the civilization which existed here and still concealed themselves СКАЧАТЬ